The whooshing racers. The unmistakable tung-tung-tung of shifting drivetrains, reverberating through state-of-the art, carbon fiber road bikes.
The electric jitters, the contagious joy of a racer’s win.
In what’s become a summer tradition going back decades, the Cascade Cycling Classic Criterium, presented by the Horner Cycling Foundation, returns to downtown Bend on June 21.
The criterium traces the same clockwise course it has for years: an L-shape along NW Wall Street, Oregon Avenue, Bond Street, Minnesota Avenue, Lava Road and Franklin Avenue. At nearly a mile per lap, the course is technical yet fast — a dynamic that pits powerhouse sprinters against the peloton’s nimblest bike handlers.
Last year, about 155 racers competed, ranging in age and ability from 9-year-old kiddos to seasoned professionals whose team managers have them competing all summer throughout the country and beyond.
In what’s a perennial source of anxiety for bicycle race directors, even to veterans like Molly Cogswell-Kelley, is whether the pro teams will register early or at the last minute, which is usually the case due to scheduling, injuries and other variables in a race calendar.
This year’s prize purse is more than $20,000, which will get divvied up any number of ways according to race category; purse amounts are equal across gender according to category. There is also a non-binary 4/5 category.
“We have such a nice big prize purse,” says Cogswell-Kelley, who is also the director at Horner Cycling Foundation, youth cycling development club and also the CCC Criterium’s title sponsor, along with Hayden Homes and Simplicity, the latter two which kicked in the money for the prize purse. Podium finishers of the Pro ½ racers earn $3,000, $1,800 and $1,000, respectively. Each Pro ½ purse totals $8,550.
The race will function much as it did last year. The only tweak, Cogswell-Kelley says, is that the neutral support pit, made possible by Sagebrush Cycles, Shimano and Modus Sports, is closer to the start-finish line on NW Wall Street — not tucked along NW Franklin Avenue. Veteran race announcer and cycling historian Dave Campbell will resume his master of ceremony duties.
New this year is the Battle of the Bikes that, while contentious by name, is an all-bikes-welcome, 20-minute race that lets race-curious cyclists speed along the closed-course (no e-bikes allowed). Runners can also compete in the Bend Classic Mile Run along the CCC Criterium course.
While the professional and elite category races might draw the biggest throngs of cowbell-clanging spectators, Cogswell-Kelley says the emphasis is on the kiddo and junior racers. After all, the CCC Criterium is the largest fundraiser for the Horner Cycling Foundation, which offers free cycling development training to Central Oregon kids.
“The Cascade Cycling Classic Criterium gives local kids the opportunity to race on the big stage,” Cogswell-Kelley said, adding that with 43 members, the foundation is the largest junior road racing team in Oregon.
Here’s how criteriums work: Racers on road bikes lap a closed course as many times as they can in a time determined by their category, ranging from 20 minutes (the Kiddie Bike Sprint) to 80 minutes (the Open 1/2 race).
Attacks and counter attacks go back and forth — most fail when the peloton reigns them in. But breakaways do stick, often because racers on separate teams will work together for a chance to win primes (pronounced “preems”), or lap prizes denoted by an official’s bell — if not the overall race itself.
Founded as the five-day stage race in 1980, the Cascade Cycling Classic came back as such after a several-year hiatus in 2019. The CCC has been a single-day event since 2024.
This article appears in the Source May 21, 2026.
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